MARIA SOMERVILLE
LUSTER
CD /LP / INDIE LP
[CD] 01. Réalt / 02. Projections / 03. Garden / 04. Corrib / 05. Halo / 06. Spring / 07. Stonefly / 08. Flutter / 09. Trip / 10. Violet / 11. Up / 12. October Moon
[LP] A1. Réalt / A2. Projections / A3. Garden / A4. Corrib / A5. Halo / A6. Spring / B1. Stonefly / B2. Flutter / B3. Trip / B4. Violet / B5. Up / B6. October Moon
Label: 4AD
By the time Irish musician Maria Somerville started writing Luster, her landmark label debut for 4AD, she had lived away from her native Connemara for quite some time. Having grown up amongst the wild, mountainous terrain of Galway’s rural west coast, she later relocated to Dublin, where she patiently developed an atmospheric dream pop signature inspired by the landscape of her youth – a spellbinding soundworld of gusting ambient electronics, ethereal guitar strums, sparse percussion, and hushed lyrical vignettes. In 2019, this culminated in All My People, a self-released LP steeped in reverb, nostalgia and a yearning for home that won praise from discerning press and listeners alike.
It was upon returning to Connemara, in a house near where she was raised overlooking one of the country’s largest lakes, Lough Corrib, that work commenced on the songs that would eventually become Luster, an album that illuminates Somerville’s music anew, pushing it forward in both sound and spirit. Where All My People conveyed memories and melancholic longing with misty slowcore balladry, these 12 tracks show us an artist who’s more assured in the path her life has taken, and the person she’s become in the process. As she sings in ‘Trip’ – “I can see more clearly than I could before. I know now what’s true for me.”
Invigorated by her surroundings and emboldened by her community, Somerville found a renewed sense of creative energy upon returning to home soil. It provided “fertile ground” for free-flowing recording sessions in her small living room studio, where she stitched together demos that were then fleshed out with friends and collaborators, and later mixed by the renowned New York-based engineer Gabriel Schuman. Contributors included producers J. Colleran, Brendan Jenkinson and Diego Herrera (aka Suzanne Kraft), as well as Lankum’s Ian Lynch, whose uilleann pipe drones you can hear in ‘Violet’, and Margie Jean Lewis, whose violin bows reverberate through the ambient haze of ‘Flutter’. Sessions with musicians Henry Earnest and Finn Carraher McDonald (aka Nashpaints) helped “tie it all together”, while contributions from friends Roisin Berkley and Olan Monk enshrined the companionship they’ve shared since Somerville returned to Connemara.
Available on indie exclusive clear vinyl with black 7″.
JENSEN MCRAE
I DON’T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME!
CD / LP / LTD LP
01. The Rearranger / 02. I Can Change Him / 03. Savannah / 04. Daffodils / 05. Let Me Be Wrong / 06. Novelty / 07. I Don’t Do Drugs / 08. Tuesday / 09. Mother Wound / 10. Praying For Your Downfall / 11. Massachusetts
Label: DEAD OCEANS
From the very beginning, fans have fallen in love with Jensen McRae for the sharp, evocative and clear-eyed songwriting. An avid journaler, McRae has been breathlessly documenting her existence since she was 18. Her first album, Are You Happy Now?, was a mission statement for the artist who grew up an automatic outsider: a Black Jewish girl from Los Angeles, hellbent on making folk music in spite of the world’s attempts to box her into other, more stereotypically Black genres. McRae looked to her songwriting heroes (Alicia Keys, Carole King, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder) to build a sonic world all her own. As her audience grew and with myriad doors began unlocking, it “became the record of my coming-of-age. But it was a quiet coming-of-age, one that mostly took place inside my own head.”
I Don’t Know How But They Found Me! takes place against the backdrop of romantic turbulence and McRae’s rapidly growing audience. “I had never been in love before,” McRae said, “not really. And then I had two life-altering relationships back to back in my early twenties. This album is primarily an exploration about how love and intimacy knock the wind out of you, can take your legs out from under you.” She has also had multiple viral moments; the most recent was in 2023, when McRae posted a solo verse and chorus online, little more than a piece of a demo, and it took off. Covers, duets, and an avalanche of new fans followed (including the likes of Justin Bieber, Stormzy, and Dan Nigro to name a few); the song was the beginning of “Massachusetts” , which would become her first Dead Oceans release.
I Don’t Know How But They Found Me! also reaffirms McRae’s defiance of expectations, as she deepens her singer-songwriter bona fides and claims space for young Black women in the genre. “I do still feel like I’m pushing a boulder up a hill,” she says. “I know that in spite of my success and hard work, I still do hit walls that aren’t there for other people, and that it’s because I’m working in a space that doesn’t already allow for people who look like me. It’s connected to why I make music,” she continues, “to be seen and to help others feel seen. But I remain somewhat misunderstood.”
McRae ventured to North Carolina to record I Don’t Know How But They Found Me! with Brad Cook (Waxahatchee, Suki Waterhouse, Bon Iver), also enlisting the help of Hippo Campus’s Nathan Stocker on guitar, Bon Iver’s Matthew McCaughan on drums, and her younger brother, Holden McRae, on keys. “It felt like summer camp. None of us wanted to leave,” McRae said. “It was such a joyous ten days of pure creative expression.” In the process, I Don’t Know How But They Found Me! found its footing–a vibrating, urgent collection of songs moored by razor-sharp lyrical specificity and timeless pop melodies.
Available on limited violet coloured vinyl.
MÀIRI MORRISON & ALASDAIR ROBERTS WITH PETE JOHNSTON & FRIENDS
REMEMBERED IN EXILE: SONGS AND BALLADS FROM NOVA SCOTIA
CD / LP
01. Màiri nighean Dòmhnaill / 02. The Bonny House of Airlie / 03. Sir Neil and Glengyle / 04. Hind Horn / 05. Druimfhionn donn / 06. Katharine Jaffray / 07. Peggy Gordon / 08. Uilleam Glen / 09. Hi horò’s na hòro h-eile / 10. The Soldier’s Adieu
Label: DRAG CITY
Drag City’s man in Scotland Alasdair Roberts partners once more with Scottish Gaelic singer Màiri Morrison (a native of the Isle of Lewis) for their second collaborative LP, Remembered in Exile. Recorded in Nova Scotia with local lad, bassist/arranger Pete Johnston (whose roots stretch back ultimately to the Scottish borders by way of Ulster), the album draws on the pioneering work of folklorist Helen Creighton (1899-1989), who undertook extensive musical and ethnographic fieldwork in Maritime Canada.
Produced at Fang Recording in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia by Pete along with his frequent collaborator Mike Smith, Remembered in Exile finds Alasdair, Màiri and Pete (together with a sympathetic ensemble of Canadian musicians) crafting new arrangements of traditional songs of Scottish origin collected by Creighton. Together they breathe vigorous new life into a varied selection of material, encompassing both lowland ballads and Highland Gaelic songs, all of which were carried over the water to Canada in various waves of migration spanning several centuries.
DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS AND AL CISNEROS
PILLAR OF FIRE / CAPERNAUM 10″
10″
A. Pillar of Fire / B. Capernaum
Label: DRAG CITY
This is the first collaboration between Al Cisneros (OM, Sleep) and David Eugene Edwards (Wovenhand, 16 Horsepower).
NATURAL INFORMATION SOCIETY AND BITCHIN BAJAS
TOTALITY LP
LP
01. Totality / 02. Nothing Does Not Show / 03. Always 9 Seconds Away / 04. Clock no Clock
Label: DRAG CITY
Totality! It can only be good news. The second convergence of Natural Information Society and Bitchin Bajas, years removed from the first, misses no steps and posits low-key revolutions in gravity for everyone instead. LPs divide inevitably into two halves; here, the first side could be typed ‘space’ and the second side ‘time’. With loads of totally principled playing in the communal feel, both sides blur the edges warmly.
